


Bittersweet Memories

by bodhirookandor



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Found Family, another fic from bodhiweek!, hints of bodhicassian, i cry every day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 22:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10818129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodhirookandor/pseuds/bodhirookandor
Summary: He screams, the sound ripped from his vocal cords and giving voice to something much more painful than he could ever imagine. Bodhi grits his teeth and forces himself to move, even as it feels as though he’s leaving parts of himself behind. He won’t fail. He refuses to fail.He can’t fail them, like he did his family.





	Bittersweet Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This is the saddest shit....why am I like this.

_He screams, the sound ripped from his vocal cords and giving voice to something much more painful than he could ever imagine. Bodhi grits his teeth and forces himself to move, even as it feels as though he’s leaving parts of himself behind. He won’t fail. He refuses to fail._

_He can’t fail them, like he did his family._

* * *

They give him a medal, mouths moving over words that Bodhi can’t exactly hear. He manages a smile, ripped and fragile though it may be. The medal feels heavy on his chest and Bodhi throws it in his drawer the minute he’s back in his quarters, hidden and forgotten like it should be.

* * *

_He wakes alone, body burning and tears streaming down his face. Nothing registers within him, all Bodhi can see is bright white and the smell of antiseptic and he screams._

_“Bodhi! Bodhi! We’re here!” A voice shouts, but he keeps screaming. He refuses to go back. He can’t. Not after anything._

_They sedate him and Bodhi’s last thought is of the people he’s failed._

* * *

Nightmares plague him, steady and cruel like the Empire. Bodhi doesn’t acknowledge it, tries not to let it show on his face or his limbs. He keeps his head down, distances himself from others, even though a part of him screams that this is not what they wanted.

Bodhi works until his fingers bleed.

* * *

_“You’re from Jedha, aren’t you?” Chirrut asks, body angled in his direction, even though his face never strayed from Baze’s form. Bodhi, barely able to breathe between the aching grief on his lungs, nods. Closing his eyes, he grips the goggles in his hands tighter, and takes a deep breath._

_“I’m from Jedha. Yes.” He chokes, lungs filling with water as bitter tears cascade down his face. A hand touches his own and Bodhi blinks up to see Chirrut, head still angled towards Baze, give a soft smile. But it’s off; too much teeth and anger coursing through it. Chirrut chuckles once, fury and pain coating the sound. Bodhi closes his eyes again; he can almost hear his sister’s voice echoing Chirrut’s words._

_“NiJedha may have fallen, but her people will fight in her place.”_

* * *

There are days where he swears he can see their forms in the corner of his eye, swears he can hear a soft tut of admonishment or feel a swat at the back of his head. He turns, a smile breaking out of his face but every time he’s met with the crushing reality. He’s alone. Like he’d always been. Like he’d always be.

Bodhi works and works and works, nothing but his rage and grief fueling him.

* * *

_Baze sits down next to him and Bodhi can practically feel the heat emanating from the man. He doesn’t say anything though, merely waits for the other man to speak. Exhaustion pulls at his limbs and all Bodhi wants to do is succumb to it, to let himself fall until there’s nothing left. He doesn’t though-wonders how long it’s been since he’d ever truly rested._

_“It’s okay, you know.” Baze says, tone soft and warm like the blanket his mother used to offer him when he was younger. “It’s okay to want to rest, to want to let yourself go. It’s okay.” Bodhi turns and stares at him, only to startle at the slow smile on his face. It curves around his lips, loose and playful, reminding him all at once of his father. Bodhi can barely breathe around the lump in his throat. The smile he offers back is shaky._

_“It’s okay,” Baze repeats, pressing a hand on Bodhi’s shoulder, “rest for now. Tomorrow, we fight.” And Bodhi closes his eyes, and lets himself go._

* * *

At night, away from the stares and soft whispers of the base, Bodhi lets himself fall apart. He lets himself mourn and cry, lets the tears build up in his body until he’s more water than man-until he lets them loose like a waterfall. They run down his face, angry and hot, bitter and cold, pooling into his pillow and reminding Bodhi that there’s nothing more he can do. He cries and cries at night, falling apart silently and without audience, only to remake himself in the morning.

Not a word leaves his lips.

* * *

_“Who are you?” Someone asks, voice soft and wispy like the wind, devastating and desperate like a tornado. Bodhi swims ashore his cascading thoughts, grabs hold of a gaping chasm in his mind and yanks himself up and out of his tattered memories._

_“Who are you?” They ask again, voice demanding and angry-not at him, he learns, but at something else. Bodhi opens his mouth, eyes glazed but burning and answers._

_“I’m the pilot.”_

* * *

Princess (“Call me General,” she says, lips tilted up in a funny little smile that Bodhi does his best to imitate. It never works and she laughs at him for it.) Organa walks towards him one day. Her back ramrod straight and her lips pulled into a frown. Bodhi quirks an eyebrow and waits for her proposal-she’s always got a proposal.

“Bodhi,” she says, and even though a month has passed, Bodhi still feels himself choking at the familiar cadence of her voice. It reminds him too much of a girl who took one look at him and decided that he was her family, that fought as hard for him as he did for her. He swallows down the bile in his throat and nods for General Organa to continue.

“Bodhi,” she says again, eyes twinkling with the force of three suns. He stares at those eyes and sees why so many would die for her.

“Is this what they would have wanted?” She asks and Bodhi turns away from her, doesn’t answer her at all because both of them know the truth. She nods once and turns away, but not before saying one more thing.

“You won’t be honoring them this way,” she says, voice soft and intimate as though she’s talking to herself as much as she is talking to him, “not if you let yourself be swallowed up by your grief.” Bodhi swallows the acid in his throat, punches down the brimstone rage in his chest and blinks back the frustrated tears in his eyes. He says nothing, merely watches her walks away.

He says nothing, even though a thousand words bubble up in his throat.

* * *

_“You’re a good man, Bodhi,” Cassian whispers, voice awed and soft in a way that makes Bodhi heart constrict. He smiles, soft and shy as the other man lays a hand on his. They don’t say anything, the air charged with something that neither one of them want to give a name to. Cassian moves closer and wraps his arms around Bodhi’s form. It’s warm and safe, everything melting away until there’s nothing left but him and Cassian._

_“You’re a hero,” Cassian whispers in his ear and Bodhi holds him tighter._

_‘I’m not,’ he wants to say, ‘I’m really, truly, not.’_

* * *

He pulls out the medal they had given him. The one he’d vowed never to look at again. Bodhi traces the ridges along the edge and stares; stares until his eyes water and his lips wobble with suppressed emotion. His mouth open and closes. Once. Twice. Three times. The only sound that escapes is the bone deep rattled gasps of a man that’s given so much for so little in return.

He wants to say words, but they fail him. Like always.

* * *

_Jyn comes to him right before they’ve set to depart. Her face is impassive, but Bodhi can see straight through her feigned nonchalance. She’s nervous, body hunched in on itself, and fingers unnaturally still by her side. He says nothing, letting her come and sit in the copilot’s seat. The air is heavy between them, until Jyn opens her mouth._

_“How are you?” She asks, her voice fragile and terrified like cracked glass. Bodhi wonders if she even notices. He drums his fingers on his lap and turns to stare at her fully. Suspiciously bright eyes stare back at him, vulnerable and raw in a way that has him swallowing the lump in his throat.  
“How are you?” Jyn asks again and Bodhi takes in the way her body hunches further into itself, voice small and tentative, hidden behind a half-broken wall of cement._

_“I’m not dead.” He says. And then. “How are you?” She smirks-although it’s hallow, barely a pull of the lips._

_“I’m not dead.” Bodhi nods and doesn’t push away the body that curls up against his own. They stay like that until the others come._

* * *

He stares at his new pilot suit; watches the way it catches the light. His hands, (shaky, so very shaky) touch the fabric. He can barely swallow down the miasma of fear and guilt and anger and holy fuck why is he always so alone. Why him? Why him? Tears gather in his eyes but he’s so tired of crying, so tired.

He looks up and almost chokes on his sobs. Chirrut, semi-transparent, smiles sadly back at him.

“I’m here,” Chirrut whispers, his hand hovering to touch Bodhi’s own before he drops them. Bodhi can feel his heart burn. Wants to say so many things but can’t give voice to the violent storm inside him.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, throat closing, and lips forming around the gaping sobs that escape him. “I’m so so so sorry.” Chirrut says nothing, merely sits next Bodhi’s weeping form and waits for his tears to subside.

“We’re okay Bodhi. We’re one with the Force. Tethered to it, like you will one day be, like you are right now. You haven’t lost us-any of us. Not if you let yourself believe.” And Bodhi wants to say so many things, wants to scream that he doesn’t believe in the Force. And why should he? When all it ever brings him is pain and suffering, death and decay. Anger and a loneliness so deep it takes his breath away? Why should he believe in something that doesn’t believe in him?

Chirrut shakes his head and with one whisper of “we’re here with you, Bodhi Rook, always.” He disappears. Bodhi tells himself he’s okay with that. Even though loneliness rushes in and settles across his shoulders. Heavy and cold like it always is.

* * *

The next one to visit him is Baze. Bodhi nearly has a heart attack when the other man appears in his ship while he’s doing maintenance. He says nothing, staring at Bodhi’s scandalized expression with something like amusement and fondness in his eyes. Bodhi looks down and thanks every star in the universe that he’s alone his ship. Baze takes a step closer and Bodhi finds himself wanting nothing more than to give the other man a hug. But he can’t, and the knowledge burns his soul.

Baze remains standing, even as Bodhi sits down and indicates one of the chairs in front of him. His eyes are far away, even as he comes to stand closer to Bodhi’s sitting form.

“It’s hard to believe in something that’s only brought you pain and suffering,” Baze begins and Bodhi clenches his teeth in agitation and understanding. Of course, Baze would understand. He’d always understood Bodhi in a way that still baffles him.

“It’s hard to understand something that can seem so cruel and heartless. I understand Bodhi. I know. After I lost Chirrut, I-” He cuts himself off and Bodhi fights between his own understanding and his fury. Why can’t he hold onto his rage? His grief? Why do they want to take it away from him? Why can’t he just be? He closes his eyes and breathes; lets the words crumble like ash on his tongue and listens to the rest of Baze’s story.

“It’s not healthy, to bottle everything up like you’re doing. It’s not healthy at all. You need to let us go, Bodhi. All of us.” Baze doesn’t say anything more after that and Bodhi turns his head away from the man, balls up his fists and breathes in.

The air smells like damp earth and waterfall.

* * *

He dreams of the others sometimes, dreams of laughter and quiet murmurings, of angry cries and hissed promises. He dreams of their last moments, holding onto one another and praying the other is safe. He dreams of soft eyes of a sadness so deep it permeates their skin. He dreams of bitter twists of the lips, of acidic words and a vulnerability hidden behind false bravado.

* * *

_“Who are you, Bodhi Rook?” Cassian asks, breath caught between laughter and wonder. Bodhi chuckles and his fingers wrap around the other man’s, tentative and sure all at once._

* * *

_“Don’t die, Bodhi.” She says, her mouth tilted up in a smirk, although her eyes are dark, cold with worry and a fear so deep it weathers her face. Bodhi places a hand on her shoulder and pulls her in for a hug. He makes no promises, but hopes this is enough._

* * *

Bodhi sees Baze and Chirrut a lot, sometimes they’re together and sometimes they’re not. He doesn’t tell them that he’s caught between yearning and bitter jealousy every time he sees them together, doesn’t tell them about the bitter twinge in his chest or the exhaustion that pulls at his limbs. He doesn’t tell them anything like that. Doesn’t tell them that over time it gets easier to see them, gets easier to have them pop up randomly in his sleeping quarters or on his ships, doesn’t tell them how much comfort it brings them.

He doesn’t want to lose them. Not again. Not after he’s lost so much.

* * *

There are days where Bodhi wakes up from his nightmares, days where he can’t force himself to fall asleep. Where all he can do to calm the rushing in his thoughts and the swirling in his stomach is head outside and climb to the roof the base. He breathes in the cold air and lets the quiet serenity of the night soak in his skin, slither past his bones, and settle in his heart. He’s unsurprised to see Chirrut and Baze on either side of him. The three of them sit together, face turned towards the horizon as the sun slowly rose over the base. Baze is the one the speaks, voice a soft timbre that warms Bodhi’s insides.

“We’re here with you Bodhi, always. You know that. Chirrut, me, even Cassian and Jyn.” Bodhi nods once, but doesn’t speak, his throat raw and his emotions frayed at the ends. Chirrut takes over, and Bodhi turns to look at him.

“You just have to look to the Force. We’re within it, as are you.” Chirrut turns and smiles with the force of an exploding star, and Bodhi laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs some more, tears streaming down his face as Baze and Chirrut disappear. His laughter slowly transforms into sobs. He sits there, on that roof, tears streaming down his cheeks even as the smile on face refuses to go away. Bodhi closes his eyes and feels the wind on his face. Alone, but not in the way he’d always thought he was.


End file.
